


Like Talking Except You Don't Talk

by seastheday



Series: Bardic Inspiration [2]
Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Bards Being Bards, Canonical Character Death, Emotional Sex, F/M, Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward Spoilers, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Violent Sex, no betas we die like men, sex to deal with grief
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-18
Updated: 2020-08-18
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:41:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25981513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seastheday/pseuds/seastheday
Summary: Guydelot isn’t always the most emotionally observant person on the face of the planet, not when he’s three drinks in and is draped over someone’s lap. But whenshebursts into the inn and bar in Falcon’s Nest, she’s hardly subtle and he understands precisely one thing with a blinding bolt of clarity.Something has gonehorribly, irreversibly wrong.
Relationships: Guydelot Thildonnet/Warrior of Light, implied Warrior of Light/Other
Series: Bardic Inspiration [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1868695
Kudos: 22





	Like Talking Except You Don't Talk

**Author's Note:**

> With thanks always to Emet-Selch's Wholesomely Debauched Bookclub for the love this series has gotten in it's planning stages. You can join us at https://discord.gg/enabling-debauched-xivfic and listen to me scream about how I don't understand Discord on the regular and also get sneak peeks at upcoming stuff.
> 
> \---
> 
> Title is from The Dresden Dolls's "Sing". There's no real connection here except that it's a good line for this story and the song itself distills a lot of a kind of... bardic essence (?) for me.

Guydelot isn’t always the most emotionally observant person on the face of the planet, not when he’s three drinks in and is draped over someone’s lap. Sure, he could handle plucking at someone’s heart and purse strings, figure out what to say to get someone to spill what information they had that he needed, but there’s a difference between a cold read on a stranger in a bar and recognizing a sea change in people you actually care about or reading between the lines when you, also, have emotions invested in the outcome. But when _she_ bursts into the inn and bar in Falcon’s Nest, she’s hardly subtle and he understands precisely one thing with a blinding bolt of clarity.

Something has gone _horribly_ , irreversibly wrong.

She’s smiling, seems like a bundle of energy and light as she walks the several feet towards him and hauls him up by the front of his jacket to kiss him hello, but there’s a look in her eyes and a set to her jaw when she’s not kissing him like she’s holding something back just by dint of squeezing her teeth together hard enough. There’s a wolf whistle from his current drinking companion and he manages a smarmy little, 

“Well, looks like I’ll have to take a rain check, my dear. It seems I’m currently spoken for,” with a laugh as he’s dragged away. He waves over his shoulder, jaunty and unconcerned, but as soon as the door closes behind the two of them he lets his expression shift to show the _worry_ he feels, 

“What’s the matter, love? You--” he doesn’t get to finish. She steps in and kisses him until he has to gasp for air afterwards and he hits the bed a few moments later hard enough to take the rest of his breath, there’s none to spare for talking. She’s like a wild animal on top of him and for the next few moments his whole world narrows just to trying to help her get their clothes off fast enough that she doesn’t tear anything or split either one of their lips open on the other’s teeth. Every bid for slow or calm is ignored, to the point that she actually _growls_ at him once in frustration when he tries to soothe her into a softer kiss. 

They can get rough sometimes, but he’s never seen her like this, something almost _unhinged_ about how she’s moving, like this is some kind of an _attack_. Even so, he’s not unconsenting, just worried, terrified _for_ her rather than of her. Whatever is happening inside her head, it’s not pretty. But all he can do right now is divert the river as best he can, keep her from hurting either one of them in her aggression and her haste, and cling on for the ride. 

Somehow, he’s on top of her and he doesn’t have to be asked twice when she wraps her legs around his waist and makes another one of those impatient noises when he tries to go slow, snapping her hips up to his the moment he starts to ease into her. From there, it’s too easy to snarl something back, grip into her hips hard enough to leave bruises and _fuck_ her, clear that that’s what she’s being trying to ask for from the start. 

It’s about three, savage thrusts in that he realizes she’s _crying_ and he freezes, startled at the revelation.

“If you stop now, I’ll _never_ forgive you,” she grits out when he does, “If you say _one word_...” she chokes up, can’t finish, and Guydelot may not always be the most emotionally observant person on the planet, but he’s not _stupid_ either, 

“If I--”

“Not _one_ wo--” She starts and he _snaps_ his hips forward, rougher than he was even a moment before, and she breaks off with a strangled gasp of a noise, almost pain. His heart clenches in his chest, but this is a song he can play, if she will only _let_ him.

“If I do _anything_ at all that you don’t like” he continues, and this time she doesn’t interrupt him, “I am _trusting you_ to tell me,” another brutal, sharp thrust, “Do you understand?”

“Y-yes…” she manages, watery, _relieved_ , and wherever her mind is, she’s still enough _here_ when he looks in her eyes that he believes her.

“Good.” His tone is as sharp as her teeth, as unforgiving as the next thrust inside of her. She won’t let him go slow and he stops trying to convince her otherwise, fucks her in long, harsh thrusts that she wails through. She fights him, but he can tell that she’s not really trying to get away, just needs to fight _something_ , and he grips her wrists and pushes her down to the bed, bites into her skin, until she unravels in his arms with a sound of gratitude, quiet right at the end. 

He can tell that she’s not done, that whatever ghost is haunting her, it’s still right over her shoulder and so he’s unrelenting in the aftermath, doesn’t let her settle down. He has to replace his cock with his fingers while he takes a moment to recuperate but he’s still young enough that he doesn’t need long. It’s mostly just that he doesn’t want her to _think_ in the meantime, wants her warbling in overstimulation rather than gritting her teeth through some pain he doesn’t fully know the source of yet. He keeps her writhing for him, shuts her up every time she seems to try to speak with a new angle or a different bit of pressure and wrings another orgasm out of her before he’s fully hard again.

He flips her over this time, running off a sudden unconscious realization about what else might help from her glassy eyes, the way she’s looking more inward than outward. He makes sure she can grip into the pillows and then drags her hips upwards, sheathing himself in her in one push, starting a pace immediately after that. This time, he keeps it slower, more even, but he makes sure every one hits her _deep_. The tone of her noises changes when he does it, clear now that she’s _sobbing_. He bites his lip just shy of drawing his own blood and then reaches down and slides his fingers through her hair, clenching his fist a moment later in it to yank her up out of the pillows, pulling up until her back arches and her fingers scrabble for purchase in the sheets.

“I know this isn’t about me,” he hisses in her ear, the words sharp not because it’s what he wants but because it’s what she _needs_ right now, “Whatever it is, _let it out_. You can trust me. You don’t have to hold anything back.” She chokes on another sob and he punches the next one out of her with another thrust. She doesn’t answer, but he’s not sure if she _can_ , and he keeps the pace brutal and unrelenting and she wails through it, eventually gets her hands on the headboard and takes over the rhythm herself, which gives him enough spare hands to wrap an arm around her. All he really has to do is give her his fingers against her sex to grind on and she takes over that motion too, until she’s coming so violently he actually doesn’t follow her right away, the sensations entirely too much for him to do much more than hang on.

She screams someone else’s name. She screams it in _anguish_.

He cleans them up as best he can, though he’s exhausted too. She quiets to sniffles as he does, curls up around a pillow and lets him do whatever he wishes. He slots himself around her from behind when he’s through and holds her, planting the occasional kiss on her shoulder while she cries herself out. 

He’s not sure if he sleeps, or if she does, but the fire has burnt out and the room is chilled and dark when he next opens his eyes. Her shifting is what’s woken him, and when her mouth meets his, it is warm and swollen and _grateful_. Their tongues tangle between one breath and the next and the kiss is passionate but slow, calm, like she could just relearn the textures of him all night, and he thought he was exhausted beyond another round but he’s suddenly so hard he aches with it. 

It’s a mirror of their first night together, her straddling his hips, raising and lowering herself on him with a single-minded dedication, but this is her doing this _for_ him. The slower pace, the way her lips cling to his, how she leans in over him so he can hear how much pleasure she’s getting from him even as she’s mostly the one giving it, this time. She makes _love_ to him, and she doesn’t let him forget for a moment of it that she’s _here_ , with him, seeing _him_ , for all that she was somewhere else before.

Everything blurs slowly, everything bleeds away, until the whole world is nothing but the bed, the two of them. She breathes her appreciation into his skin and he wants to express to her somehow that she doesn’t have to thank him for this, that he is delighted just to be here with her, to be trusted with this, that she needs no apology for what has happened. But he also knows she sometimes has trouble putting such things into words and so he lets her _show_ him, meets her gentleness with gentleness the same way he met violence with violence, lets her slowly take him apart. 

In the morning she’s dry-eyed, still filthy from the night before despite him trying to clean them both and in need of a bath, but looking _much_ improved, if Guydelot does say so himself. There are no apologies and no explanations forthcoming and Guydelot has no plans to ask for either. He doesn’t need them. She is enough. That she came to _him_ is enough. She is silent for a long time, just rests her head on his chest and traces idle patterns on it in the morning light, before finally looking up at him, 

“I need you to write me a song,” her voice is rough from screaming the night before and quiet with lazy morning sunlight, “I don’t think I can do it myself. It would be an _elegy_ and he wouldn’t want… He’d want it to be _heroic_ ,” she smiles and oh, he knows that smile. He knows there’s always been room in her heart for more than one person, so there’s no pain in it to get the last piece of the puzzle. 

Whoever he was, she _loved_ him. Whoever he was, he’s gone.

“But I don’t want it to be about fighting, either,” she continues, “Something more gentle, for someone who is… who was…” her voice catches.

“A love song,” he says, trying to distract just a bit, keep things moving so she doesn’t stop and falter. He combs his fingers through her hair gently, his voice taking on a softer, more personal version of his stage voice, something they both use in bed in the mornings after, spinning tales to one another. He can feel her relax a little more against him to hear it and it makes him smile, “Separated lovers, their lives torn apart by a war, but the song itself isn’t really _about that_. She’s waiting for him to return to her--”

“--looking up at the stars, praying he’s seeing the same ones,” she takes up the same tone and it’s the best thing he’s heard from her since she stormed into the inn last night, “Until the war is over and they can one day meet again. She’ll… she’ll wait.” He hums his approval, 

“I think I have a few ideas.” She falls silent enough that he presumes she’s gone back to sleep and he just keeps carding his hand through her hair. He’s not sure why he’s been trusted with this, _him_ , of all people, but she can rest as long as she wants here, he would never refuse her. 

“Thank you,” she says, sleepily, after a long moment, “for… for _everything_.” 

“Of course,” he says it lightly, but not flippantly, “I’m always happy to sing for you, love. Just name the tune.” He can feel her smile against him, 

“A happier song next time, then, I promise,” and the answering lightness in her tone makes anything, _everything_ worth it.

“I look forward to it.”


End file.
